TV shows us how complex our lives are
I don’t watch much TV, but recently I started watching Humans. Comparing it remembering watching The X Files twenty five years ago, Humans is far more complex storytelling. It’s plot has more twists that create intrigue and suspense, it’s characters portray deeper emotions and motivations, and moral ambiguity, and the structuring of the episodes seems more designed to take the audience on a more of an emotional rollercoaster journey than X Files ever did.
I wonder if this is a reflection on how our lives have become more complex over the last twenty five years and that as that complexity is the norm, we need more complex TV shows to engage us. In the simpler times of the X Files when only a few people had mobile phones, there was no internet, globalisation seemed like a far off thing, people accepted, and in fact needed a simpler approach to storytelling.
It also makes me wonder about the future of storytelling with more on-demand TV services, 5G mobile internet speeds, second-screen (using other devices to engage in the storytelling such as tweeting about the show), assistant devices/services, and greater personalisation of advertising/reminding. Storytelling looks like its going to get a lot more complex and a lot more interesting.